Politically Correct Nursery Rhymes
Revisionism of popular children's songs, fairy tales: a sacrifice?
Is revisionism of fairy tales and nursery rhymes in the name of political correctness itself politically incorrect?
More and more nursery rhymes and fairy tales are subject to revisionism. Some are rendered more p.c., "politically correct", while others are cleansed of cruel passages - this while ever-younger children are playing video games and watching movies with ever-more horrific scenes, not to mention the scenes they get to see on the early evening news or reality TV.
Recently, I was listening to Prokofiev's musical fairy tale, Peter and the Wolf. As a child I loved this piece, including the finale: the hunters cut open the wolf and the duck jumps out of his belly, alive and well. But in this new version the wolf is caught by the hunters and brought to the zoo. The end. You can hear the duck cry out from within its belly! I guess fairness to fairy tale animals applies only to wolves, not ducks.
Then there was the recent upset in Britain, when some nurseries decided that Baa baa, black sheep was discriminatory and revised it to Baa baa, rainbow sheep. It turns out that this is standard practice: teachers eliminate the seven dwarves from Snow White, keep the cradles safely perched up in the tree, and protect Humpty Dumpty from breaking.
This is not just happening in the West. Take Bengali nursery rhymes, which make frequent mention of marriage (for both girls and boys, it should be added), like the song nursery rhyme Dol dol dulunee (for girls), in which the tense is traditionally the immediate now:
Dol dol dulunee
Ranga mathay chiroonee
Bor ashbay ekhoonee
Niye jabay tokhoonee
(Rockabye baby / A comb in your red hair / Now the bridegroom will come / He is coming to take you with him)
In the new version, however, the grammar of the third line is adjusted to postpone the parting, to "Bor ashbay jhokonee", meaning: "whenever the bridegroom comes, then he will take you with him".
Such revisionism makes losers of us all. It is the function of nursery rhymes and fairy tales to cater to a child's simple sense of justice and catharsis, and to help them learn to act out and deal with aggression. Also, just like they don't tolerate literal translations, nursery rhymes hardly ever survive tinkering with their rhythms.
Lastly, a society loses out on important opportunities for challenging racism, gender bias, and a myriad of obsolete values. As such, and in the long run, the revising itself of nursery rhymes and fairy tales will turn out to be politically incorrect.
Related articles:
Nursery rhymes lost in translation
Some nursery rhymes are just shocking!
When nursery rhymes promote old values
